by Martha Carr
“Why the Clubhouse?” Nickie gave her sister a confused smile. “We’re all home.”
“Yeah, well, that’s where we’re keeping our weapons, so…that’s part of it. Just meet me there.” Laura fingered the silver coin on her keyring engraved with her own thumbprint. The second the pad of her thumb slid onto its twin in the coin, she disappeared from the foyer with a little pop.
Nickie shook her head and strode across the living room. “Okay, I get meeting in the Clubhouse to be quiet, or so I can get away from the drums in my head, or so we can pack up our energy-core-destroying supplies, but—”
Laura popped right back into the foyer with wide eyes and shrugged. “Never mind. She’s already there. So hurry up.”
Laughing when her older sister disappeared again, Nickie went to the side table against the wall the living room shared with the staircase and grabbed her set of keys. “Am I the only one around here who’d like to chill for a little bit? ‘Cause we’re gonna be really busy in like, well, now, I guess. Okay, buddy.” She glanced at Speed, and the bulldog slumped to his belly on the floor and nestled his head between his paws with a grunt. “We’ll be back soon. Keep an eye on those grackles, huh?” She slipped her thumb over the thumbprint on the round silver keyring, just like each of her sisters’, and vanished.
Chapter Eight
“All right.” Nickie stuffed her keys into the back pocket of her jeans and turned around to find her sisters. “So, why’s everyone so caught up in…woah.”
She found her sisters, all right. Emily knelt on the floor by the huge bookshelf behind the cherry-red futon in the sisters’ Clubhouse, her hand raised over the last remaining iron orb Laura’s legacy ring had made her as a rather odd weapon. The youngest Hadstrom sister’s copper ring glowed on her finger, bringing a faint, translucent red light to the palm she held over the little trapdoor opened within the iron orb.
Laura stood beside her, the iron lance pressed into the ground like a staff wielded by some kind of shepherd queen. She’d raised her hand, too, but this was to cast the spell with the silver ring on her thumb emitting a glowing golden light. This had formed into a shape of curving lens and sharp edges that Nickie didn’t recognize.
“Are you guys going after another energy core right now?” Nickie took a step toward them from the center of the clubhouse but paused upon seeing the intense concentration on her sisters’ faces.
Laura flicked her gaze from the golden rune floating in front of her and cocked her head. “No, but that’s not a bad idea, Nickie. You guys have anything going on today?”
“Nope.” Emily’s eye twitched as she moved the light of her own spell up, down, and sideways over the trapdoor in her iron orb.
“Uh…I don’t have any plans ‘til tomorrow.” Nickie joined them behind the futon. “I’m down to bash one more and score another win for Team Hadstrom, but…what are you guys doing?”
Emily jerked her head up, looked at Nickie, and pointed at her round weapon. “Improvements. Obviously.”
“Oh, yeah. Obviously.”
Laura grinned at her youngest sister on the floor by her feet and nodded at Nickie. “Do you know what this is?” Her finger twitched toward the golden rune in the air.
“Nope.” Nickie stared at it. “But you’re gonna tell me, aren’t you?”
“All right, Em.” Laura nudged her sister’s hip with the butt of her iron lance. “This is what I wanted to show you, so take a break from your improvements for just a sec.” Emily didn’t reply, look up, or move to do anything at all. “Please, Em.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m coming. I’m done anyway, so…” The youngest sister pushed up off the floor and faced the others. Her eyes widened when she noticed the glowing rune in the air. “Woah. What’re you planning to do with that?”
“Something I think is actually gonna work for us.” Laura wiggled her eyebrows and smiled up at the glowing image. “I found this rune on the stone in the Greenbelt.” She grinned at them like they were supposed to know what that meant.
“There are a lot of stones in the Greenbelt.” Nickie shrugged. “You might wanna be a little more specific.”
“The stone…the prison, you guys.” Laura lowered her brows at them. “You normally would’ve picked up on that one.”
“I’m a little distracted.” Emily glanced at the iron orb on the ball and shook her head before returning her attention to her big sister’s presentation. “Definitely keep going, though. This is good stuff.”
“Yeah, I think so. I found this rune on the Gorafrex prison in the Greenbelt, like I said. Copied an image of it—”
“So our rings double as magical cameras now, too, huh?” Nickie’s lips twitched in an attempt not to smirk at that.
“There is, literally, a spell for everything, Nickie.”
“Yeah, and you actually used one when it wasn’t one-hundred-percent necessary.” Emily grinned at Laura, nodding with loads of enthusiasm. “Good work. It feels good to bend the rules a little when you’re in a pinch, doesn’t it?”
Laura stared at her for a few seconds. “I didn’t…okay. Yes. I couldn’t go all the way back to my car to grab my phone and all the way back to the Greenbelt to take a picture of the rune. Instead, I used magic, because it was easier.” She folded her arms and cocked her head. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Emily kept smiling, and she put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I’m so proud of you.”
Nickie snorted.
“Okay, Em. Well, I’m not trying to take all the pages out of your book.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Nothing. Can we focus on me telling you about what I found, please? This is important.”
Emily removed her hand and clasped them behind her back. “Yes. Definitely explain this floating, glowing shape.”
Nickie just pursed her lips and scratched the side of her head.
“Thank you.” Laura peered at the glowing rune. “I’d never seen this thing before, but it had to be on the prison for a reason, right? So, I thought I’d do some digging, and a…colleague of mine”—she swallowed thickly—“had an old journal with a vast amount of information about Arenya V technological magic. A lot of it was about what spells, materials, and magic amplifications the Mechanics used to build this ship, with the Engineers’ help; the Kashgar specifically. There was something in there about them wanting to bring the knowledge up to the surface and share it with the passengers, but then things went, well, not according to plan.”
“Sucks when that happens,” Emily muttered. When her oldest sister shot her a look, she added, “Sorry,” and mimed zipping her mouth shut.
“Anyway, after all the explanations of technological magic in this journal, there was a whole list of ancient Mechanic runes used specifically for this ship. I mean, they were probably used for a bunch of other things on Arenya V, but I think every single one of the runes we found in that journal have been used at some point on this ship. And this one—”
“Who’s we?”
“Uh…what?”
Nickie drew her brows together and glanced away from the rune at Laura. “You said ‘the runes we found’. Who found them with you?”
“Oh. Just a colleague.” Laura’s throat tightened.
“Was it Winston?” Emily lifted both her shoulders with a little sigh. “I think he’s funny.”
“No. It wasn’t Winston.”
Nickie’s mouth popped open, and she pulled in a long breath of realization as a smile bloomed in surprise. “It was Nathan, wasn’t it?”
“Definitely not.” Laura tried to meet her sister’s gaze, but her gaze flickered toward the corner of the Clubhouse.
“Holy cow.” Emily folded her arms and echoed Nickie’s epiphanic shock. “You did two totally-not-Laura things today that make me just want to pinch your cheeks and give you a big—”
“Stop.” Laura raised a hand to ward off her youngest sister’s pinching fingers and scrunched up face.
Nickie and Emily giggled.
“So you did go through a journal of ancient technological runes with Nathan, then, didn’t you?” Nickie batted her eyelashes.
Laura tried to stare her sister down, but she couldn’t hide the way she felt about the physics professor who might have just handed them the answer to their problem on a silver platter. Or a leather-bound cover. Either way. She shrugged. “Okay, fine. Yes. I had lunch with Nathan, then we went back to his office—”
“Hey, that’s romantic.”
“Em…” Nickie shot their youngest sister a warning glance.
“No, seriously. You’re both professors, you like being at school, you went to him for help with this rune, and he pulled out a journal that…wait.” Emily squinted and studied the ceiling. “Why does Nathan have a journal on Kashgar technology magic?”
Nickie and Laura gave her blank looks, neither saying a word.
“What?” The youngest Hadstrom sister glanced between them. “That doesn’t seem weird?”
“Um…” Nickie gestured toward her. “The only weird thing right now is that you’re asking that question and genuinely don’t know the answer.”
Laura’s face bloomed a bright shade of pink.
“Okay, I’m seriously missing something.” Emily shrugged. “I mean, I know Nathan’s magical. Laura told us that when she met him. But that still doesn’t explain…oh.”
Nickie chuckled. “There it is.”
“Oh…” Emily turned toward Laura and grinned even wider than before. “I knew there was something a little off when I saw his eyes at the party last night. All the”—she wiggled her fingers in front of her eyes—“the purply stuff. That makes so much sense now.”
Laura put a hand against her cheek, mostly just because she wanted to feel if her face was actually as hot on the outside as it felt on the inside. “I still don’t know if I trust him completely. Not yet. I’m not gonna defend him to you guys if you have a problem with it, but right now, I’m focusing on the fact that he helped me find what this rune means so we can use it on the—”
“Laura.” Emily stopped her sister with a gentle rub on the back. “I don’t care that Nathan’s a Kashgar.”
“Part Kasghar. Like way less than half.” Laura closed her eyes and shook her head at how much that made her sound desperate to defend him, like she’d just said she wouldn’t do.
“Okay.” Nickie shrugged. “So?”
“So…the Kashgar aren’t known for their overflowing philanthropy, are they?”
“Yeah, but they’ve been living up here away from their cousins for so long.” Emily squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “I mean, live around humans enough, you’re gonna start acting like them in some way.”
“And it made them taller, too, didn’t it?” Nickie raised her eyebrows.
“Oh, yeah. Nathan’s definitely tall. He wouldn’t have to be that tall to still have a few inches on you, Laura, but still. You got the whole tall, dark, and handsome thing in one part-Kashgar colleague.” When Emily’s words made her sister chuckle dryly, she joined in. “I don’t know why you were so afraid to tell us what he is.”
“Maybe I was just afraid to admit that I already knew what he was when I agreed to go to that party with him.” Laura scrunched her eyes shut and leaned away from her sisters. “I don’t know.”
“You know the only thing that upsets me about all this?” Nickie spread her arms, and Laura looked at her with terrified eyes. “That you tried to make us believe Nathan’s a dwarf.”
Emily threw her head back and screamed with laughter. “Yeah, we saw right through that the second he found us in Vanessa’s entryway.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “That was literally your worst lie in the history of Laura Hadstrom lies. Which isn’t that long, actually.”
Nickie chuckled.
“So, neither one of you have a problem with me talking to Nathan about our little…our big problem?” I might as well be begging them to let me date the guy. Never had to do that with Mom and Dad, I guess.
“No way.” Emily stuck out her lower lip. “I mean, he pretty much had the gist of it last night when we brought Vanessa back to her house, right? It’s not like there was a reasonable explanation for what the Gorafrex did to her. Except for the truth.”
“Em’s right, Laura. You didn’t spill any magical beans, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“No, but I told him the whole story this morning. I…I mean, I felt like I owed him that much, right?”
“Sure.” Nickie approached both her sisters on the other side of the floating rune and set a hand on both their shoulders. “I know this is our family legacy.”
“You sound just like Dad when you say it like that.” Emily shot her a playful frown.
“Yeah, that’s because it was on purpose.” Nickie met Laura’s gaze and held it. “I know it’s on us to find the Gorafrex and bring it down. Keep a bunch of Peabrains from waking up after being hosts and going completely nutso on the city with their new magic. Make sure no more witches or wizards die for blood magic.” She shrugged and released their shoulders. “But I don’t know if there’s a way to do any of that without turning to other people for help. Like Rutilda and the Tree Folk. Dad even. Sort of.”
Emily nodded. “We’ll take all the help we can get. Even from a part-Kashgar who’s not that bad of a guy, really.”
Laura chewed the inside of her lip and squinted. “What if I end up spending more time with him where I’m not looking for his help with our energy-core, witch-killer, Hadstrom-legacy problem?”
“Oh, my god. Please.” Emily laughed.
“If you like someone, and you’re gonna have a life beyond archaeology and UT and this Gorafrex mess…” Nickie leaned toward her big sister with wide eyes. “Do. It. Laura.”
They were all able to laugh at that a little. Then Laura shook her head, but at least she was smiling. “I don’t even know what’s gonna happen with him. Yes, I’ll thank him for helping us, and of course I’ll tell him what happens with the rune, but beyond that…I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Meh. Nobody does.” Emily spread her arms. “Not really.”
“Hey, if it helps at all, Chuck said he likes Nathan a lot.”
“Nickie, Chuck likes everyone.”
Emily pointed at her musician sister. “Actually, that’s true. But John even said the same thing. That he thinks Nathan’s pretty cool.”
Laura raised an eyebrow at her. “I don’t know John that well. Does he lie a lot?”
Emily snorted. “As far as I know, I’m the one doing all the lying.” She took a sharp breath, blinked at the far wall of the Clubhouse, and frowned. “Aw. That sounds awful.”
“It is.” Nickie gave her sister’s shoulder a gentle nudge. “If you want a human boyfriend who has no idea that magic exists, you’re gonna have to get used it.”
After a few seconds of studying her sisters’ faces, Laura took a deep breath and turned away. “Okay, that got weirdly pessimistic. Can we get back to the rune?”
“Yep.”
“Definitely.”
Chapter Nine
“We found the rune in the journal. Turns out it’s an ancient binding spell. Not like two people bound together, so not, like, a blood pact or soul-binding, also not the kind that replaced super glue whenever this ship was built on Arenya V—”
“You mean it’s not just technological?” Emily squinted at the floating golden rune in the center of the Clubhouse.
“Exactly. This rune is for a binding spell that holds a living being, any living being, to technology.” Laura spread her arms and stepped back, waiting for her sisters to jump around and start celebrating the revelation she and Nathan had stumbled upon a few hours ago. Neither of them said a thing. “Seriously?”
“So…” Emily pointed at the rune. “That thing is like the lock on the prison door?”
“Yes. Exactly!”
“And that’s what you deactivated when you went snooping around th
e Greenbelt on your own, huh?” Nickie raised an eyebrow.
“Um…yeah.” Laura nodded and gave an apologetic shrug. “I admit I messed up. And I take all responsibility for going in there blind like I did and…unleashing all this on us. I don’t think even Carl knew how potent that dagger’s magic was in undoing spellwork. Even centuries-old protection wards and that.” She pointed at the floating rune.
“Okay.” Emily nodded. “That rune is the lock on the door, so when we put the Gorafrex back into the prison, we just copy the rune? Reactivate it? Reinstall a new one?”
“Well, yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s something we can do.”
Nickie opened her mouth, closed it, and took a deep breath. “I don’t see how the rune on the prison door is gonna help us get the thing out of the human host and into the prison.”
“Oh. This one won’t.”
The two youngest Hadstrom sisters eyed each other in shared skepticism.
Laura shook her head. “You guys, if Nathan can help me pick this rune apart into its, well, it’s original components, I guess, we can make our own. Put it on one of our weapons and bind the Gorafrex to that. With a slightly different rune but one that still has the Gorafrex-as-living-being component.”
Both her sisters gaped in realization and let out a long, “Oh…” at the same time.
Laura rolled her eyes then let out a sigh of relief. “Finally.”
“That’s pretty genius, Laura.” Emily stared at the floating rune, her eyes reflecting the golden shine as she put the pieces together of what they could do with this information. “Like…that’s like solving most of a thousand-piece puzzle and finally seeing what the actual picture’s supposed to be.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“You should keep Nathan around.” Nickie nodded and folded her arms. “If he’s helping you with stuff like this, there’s no way you can let him go now. And we should thank him, somehow.”
“How ‘bout brownies?” Emily’s eyes widened as she flashed her sisters an eager grin.
